Being supportive and encouraging will lead students to engage.

 

AASL Shared Foundations Blog Series – Engage

This blog is the fourth in a series of blogs that discuss a variety of the shared foundations that SC librarians find are important in their school libraries.  

This librarian is Kathryn.  She is the librarian at a middle school that serves 800 students.  This school is located in a small town and the majority of the students are from low income households.  Creating programs to promote reading and also provide personal experiences for those student to relate to.

Annually the school promotes the One School, One Book project that strives to engage students to read with peers, family members and staff.  The school strives to choose a book that will appeal to most students.  The book must also be supported by the teaching staff, so that they will support the program and encourage students to participate. 

There is a service project that is related to the book and the students to become engaged in their community.  By engaging students in the community they can learn and share ideas with those around them.  The 2019 book was Restart by Gordon Korman; the 2020 book is the Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty.  The main character in the book was middle school aged became a math genius after being hit by lightning.  She originally was home-schooled but then was made by her grandmother to attend middle school for one year. 

As the students and staff prepared for the community service project they decided to incorporate collecting donations for the local community animal shelter.  Classroom teachers engaged students in projects in their classrooms to promote the book.  The ELA classes researched dog breeds and made a flyer for an imaginary dog that needs to be adopted.  The science and social studies classes learned about lightning.  Math classes created a Fibonacci spiral and learned about the Golden ratio. 

Some challenges that the Kathryn faced while planning and coordinating this project was the impact that could be made on virtual students.  Many teachers were reluctant to add research and collaboration of the book project at this time.  Also, virtual students struggle to complete required assignments and adding a reading project made this effort concerning to teachers.  However, the resolution was to just encourage the participation of all students in this diverse learning community of Camden Middle School.   One Book, One School is designed to encourage all staff, families and students to take time to read together.  Being supportive and encouraging will lead students to engage.